For my part, I don't know who I am enough to give a report. It makes me nervous when others do so.

I understand indulgence of some desires are done in exchange for others. So, I stopped smoking and taking certain risks for the buzz they gave me. I loved sparring when I was younger but don't want the hurt it would bring me now. I still drink too much. I am not guru material. But I also enjoyed (and still do) more healthy pursuits before giving up the immediate attempts to die quickly. I am pretty sure the whole thing is beyond my understanding.

I do question the Zeno paradox framing of change you present. If we 'are' something at each location of time, then whatever may be good for us or not is at odds with our 'essence'. The tiny possibilities of altering course suggest that we don't exist in that way. Talking about it needs a better model.

Just to spark some discussion, I do concede that in some instances becoming something that you are not may be a better alternative than being, for example, poor rather than rich. I mean living in poverty is undesirable for the sake of itself. It's simply uncomfortable to be poor. But to have the volition to get rich is likewise undesirable also, due to the inconvenience of feeling poor until your rich.

I find it hard to find an instance that satisfying a counterfactual to become something or someone you aren't, unless your a criminal in prison or jail that needs to reform themselves, as anything worth doing.

On the other hand, I can find examples of people who are quite straightforwardly full of themselves and quite delusional, like Donald Trump. These distorted psychologies seeking something always greater or more than their pity boredom are seldom happy with themselves. Donald Trump can be rich and wealthy, yet be boor and quite delusional.

1) What am I?

If I behave in a selfish, greedy, vindictive, manner am I then a selfish, greedy, vindictive person? Am I something other than how I behave? If I am how I behave, then changing behavior changes me. If I am something other than my behavior, what does changing mean? Can I be selfish, greedy, and vindictive but actually be a selfless, generous, forgiving person?

What constitutes "who we are" and "how we are" impinges on any efforts to become something else, it seems.

2) A person can pretend to become something he or she is not, but can a person become in fact what he or she is not?

I believe we have an identity -- who we are -- which is at first a fuzzy state that is given a push toward a particular direction and definition through childhood and into adulthood. At some point we become who we are and who we are going to be.

We can use various stage settings and flattering lighting to present ourselves, but in cold daylight, we are what we are.

3) An opposite view holds that our behavior and our identity are independent. Behavior creates a reputation that is our public identity. Our reputations are provisional and subject to change through amelioration and peroration. Whatever our reputation may be, we are not the same as our reputations.

4. If a person's identity is judged to be good, then bad behavior doesn't matter. For consistency's sake, if a person's identity is judged to be bad, then good behavior doesn't matter either. Saints can do not wrong and devils can do no right.

#3 is represented in certain varieties of religious thinking. Calvinists believe people are predestined to be saved (go to heaven) or be damned (go to hell) independent of their pious behaviors. If one is pre-ordained to be damned, nothing will help. The damned are screwed from the getgo and the saved have a validated ticket (not quite how Calvin put it).

Theologians in the Calvin camp devised escape hatches from Calvin's unknowable and inflexible system of saved and damned. They felt that Christians required a way to become (something else--saved) despite predestination.

Therefore, to say, "should I become what I am not" is to state that we want to become something, be it richer or poorer or happier or more joyful. My point here is that if we have wants, and they are realized by our conception of truth or lies, then why would anyone want to live (to be) in terms of what they are not? What would be the point of living with ourselves in contradiction of who or what we are? Yet, we do this every day. — Shawn

To quote psychologist George Kelly:

“…it is not so much what man is that counts as it is what he ventures to make of himself. To make the leap he must do more than disclose himself; he must risk a certain amount of confusion. Then, as soon as he does catch a glimpse of a different kind of life, he needs to find some way of overcoming the paralyzing moment of threat, for this is the instant when he wonders what he really is – whether he is what he just was or is what he is about to be. It may be helpful at this point to ask ourselves a question about children at Halloween. Is the little youngster who comes to your door on the night of October 30th, all dressed up in his costume and behind a mask, piping "trick or treat, trick or treat" – is that youngster disguising himself or is he revealing himself? Is he failing to be spontaneous? Is he not being himself?

Which is the real child – the child behind the mask or the barefaced child who must stand up in front of adults and say "please" and "thank you?" I suspect costumes and masks worn at Halloween time, as well as uniforms worn by officers on duty, doctoral degrees, and the other devices we employ to avoid being seen as we are, are all ways we have of extricating ourselves from predicaments into which we have been cast by the language of objectivity. They represent devices for coping with the world in the language of hypothesis.

But masks have a way of sticking to our faces when worn too long. Verbs cease to express the invitational mood after the invitation has been accepted and experience has left its mark. To suggest to a person that he be what he has already become is not much of an invitation.
Thus it is that the man who has worn a uniform long enough to explore all its possibilities begins to think that he really is an officer. Once this happens he may have to go through a lot of chaos before he can make anything more of himself. A student who is awarded a Ph.D. degree can find a lot of adventure in being called "doctor" and the academic mask may enable him to experiment with his life in ways that would have seemed much too preposterous before his dissertation was accepted.

But trouble sets in when he begins to think that he really is a doctor, or a professor, or a scholar. When that happens he will have to spend most of his time making noises like doctors, professors, or scholars, with the resultant failure from that time on to undertake anything interesting. He becomes trapped by verbs that have lapsed into the indicative mood when he wasn't looking.”

Why lie about who we are? — Shawn

Well ...

Truth is ugly. We possess lies lest we perish of the truth. — Freddy Zarathustra

... the placebo effect works.

Why become something we are not?

I don't see how we cannot. Should we h. sapiens give up our civilized facades, or pretenses?

... the placebo effect works. — 180 Proof

Can beliefs be delusional or borderline psychotic? Surely...

I don't see how we cannot. Should we h. sapiens give up our civilized facades, or pretenses? — 180 Proof

I don't really know what else to say that wouldn't sound Platonic. I mean, that, to desire the good is to be in agreement with who we are with respect to the truth and the good, no?

I don't think integrity requires commitment to "the platonic good".

Yet, integrity doesn't exist in a vacuum, does it?

Why lie about who we are? Why become something we are not? — Shawn

Because it's so hard to face the ways you've failed to be the person you wanted to be. This is the topic of Sickness unto Death, by Kierkegaard.

I don't know of any concept or principle that "exists in a vacuum."

So, you say that's it's hard as does frank. So, being ethical is hard? What's hard about accepting oneself as she or he is?

He becomes trapped by verbs that have lapsed into the indicative mood when he wasn't looking.” — Joshs

Yes, I have seen that.
Speaking for a friend.

So, being ethical is hard? — Shawn

Unless one is an anti-social sociopath, thereby lacks (common) empathy, I don't think "being ethical", as you put it, is difficult. Practice, however, makes "being ethical" easier (habitual).

What's hard about accepting oneself as she or he is?

That's a psychological, not ethical, question. Socialization, I guess, or poor self-esteem.

Why become something we are not?

I don't see how we cannot. Should we h. sapiens give up our civilized facades, or pretenses? — 180 Proof

Better than bullshitting, no? :wink:

?

Well, Frankfurt says that there are people who lie, there are people that bullshit, and there are people that tell the truth. With these three cases we are most satisfied with the person that tells the truth, less satisfied with the person who bullshits, and disprefer the person that lies. Having that said the point of saying this is that being consistent with oneself and telling the truth is morally preferable and more ethical than living a life full of bullshit or deceiving ourselves about our self worth. Further, if behaving consistently and operating on a calculus of what's best to do then we ought to not engage in bullshitting or lying, yes? Therefore, if I am to become a more ethical person, it would be prudent to avoid bullshitting to myself and others along with lying. Thus, my best interest is to not become someone I am not (in the majority of cases where I am either already an ethical person or in the negative if I am not an honorable person).

Does that make sense?

I'd say there is nothing circular, and my previous comment almost sounds like a Q.E.D why Frankfurt is right about the dangers of bullshitting...

:sweat: :meh: No.

What do you mean by "no"?

Negation of yes.

So, why do you disagree?

What you wrote doesn't make sense to me so I can't "disagree" with what you've written. For instance, Frankfurt's talking about political discourse, not ethics or epistemology or whatever else you've confused his paean to bullshit with.

Oh, so there's nothing to discuss then. I thought that bullshitting was morally detrimental to ethics.

What do you thisnk ethics is about?

The good, a thoughtful life, being virtuous? Why do you ask?

I ask because you think "bullshitting" is "mostly detrimental to ethics" which makes no more sense than saying 'dyscalculia is mostly detrimental to mathematics.' :roll:

Yes, I say that because being something you aren't isn't really necessary if who you are is good enough. Bullshitting entails wanting to say or doing things that are contrary to what you are.

Bullshitting entails wanting to say or doing things that are contrary to what you are. — Shawn

IIRC, H. Frankfurt describes bullshitting as – I paraphrase – complete self-serving disregard for the true/false distinction especially in (demogogic) political discourse which cumulatively undermines civil society, etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

We humans along with all living beings on this Earth are firmly rooted in duality. Ups and downs, pleasure and pain, hot and cold...

Some have discovered/believed/theorized that underneath is something more, something whole... for lack of better words. Existing right now, not just in the afterlife. I think we all have had glimpses of it, moments of awakening, perhaps in dreams ironically. This well-known quote reflects this notion:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

As does the concept of Being, Consciousness, and Bliss in Hindu philosophy. A related idea to Plato’s Cave Allegory...

I'm going to continue with the analogy of utilizing the modal phrase of whether I should become what I am not in terms of what one ought to do.

Counterfactuals are basically things that could have been otherwise. What I am and do, are the aggregate of dispositions and preferences towards who I want to be. This entails that I am not satisfied with who I am, if I want to be something that I am not. Thus, to achieve satisfaction, I ought to be content with who I am. Yet, everyone has wants, or the majority of people.

Therefore, how can I achieve satisfaction is through maintaining myself just as I am.

Does all the above follow to the conclusion that I should be consistent in myself and avoid being something I am not?